Listless performance drops Ravens out of AFC North lead.
–The Ravens stumbled through a fundamentally flawed performance in all phases of the game, turning the ball over twice, three more times on downs, and missing two field goals in Saturday night’s 13-3 road loss to the Cleveland Browns for a split of the teams’ annual home-and-home AFC North Division series…
–In 2019, the Ravens started the season 2-2, then won a franchise-record 12 in a row to close the regular season. Currently, Baltimore is 9-5 after another 2-2 beginning and has won seven of its last ten games despite a gradual slowing of the momentum they had built up through October and November…
–Rookie linebacker David Ojabo was again deactivated, as were running back Kenyon Drake and quarterback Lamar Jackson. Late in the third quarter, cornerback Marcus Peters left the field while holding the back of his right leg (he would not return) and limping badly. In the fourth quarter, defensive tackle Calais Campbell departed with a knee injury…
–A lake-effect snowstorm fell on this game in the second half, but it did not result in accumulation or white-out conditions. But it was the closest the Ravens came to playing in another true “snow game,” which they have done only once in their history, that coming in a December 2013 home game against Minnesota…
–The Ravens failed to score first, which would have been for the 11th time in 14 games, and the Browns kept the Ravens at bay by forcing a fumble, an interception, multiple stops on downs, and kicker Justin Tucker’s first miss under 50 yards all year, his fourth field-goal miscue of the season…
–It was another productive running game for both teams, as the Ravens won that battle 198-143. It was the 14th straight game in which the Ravens have outrushed their opponent, a new franchise-record streak…
–Meanwhile, Cleveland fielded quarterback Deshaun Watson in a home game for the first time this year and in his third game back from serving an 11-game league suspension for violating the personal conduct policy. In his first three games before Saturday, Watson had directed the Browns’ offense to just one touchdown in 26 possessions, but he smartly directed an up-tempo, short-passing game that kept the Ravens off balance all game long…
–The Ravens’ loss dropped the team’s AFC North Division record to 4-1, leaving the team two wins shy of running the North table for the first time since 2011. The Ravens need just one more win to reach ten; Baltimore has posted eight double-digit-win seasons under head coach John Harbaugh; plus, the team had had at least a share of the division lead every week of the season until this loss…
–What a quickly played game! After the Ravens and Pittsburgh blew through last week’s game in a lightning-fast two hours and 46 minutes, Baltimore and Cleveland flew through Saturday’s first quarter in only 21 minutes and played four quarters in a mind-blowing 2:43…
–The Ravens came into this game with nine straight contests of two or more sacks, the league’s longest current streak. On Saturday at Cleveland, the Ravens got three more, one from Brent Urban and Kyle Hamilton, while Patrick Queen and Odafe Oweh split a sack…
–Baltimore entered this game with 23 takeaways and a plus-9 turnover ratio, ranking them second-best in the league. But the Ravens lost the turnover battle at Cleveland, playing to a minus-2…
–Ravens quarterback Tyler Huntley passed through the concussion protocol this week and played, completing 17 of 30 passes for 138 yards and an interception. If this game had been scheduled for Thursday instead of Saturday, Huntley would have been forced to sit out the game, with third-string street free agent Anthony Brown (Oregon) getting the start…
–The Browns re-entered the league in 1999, the Ravens’ fourth season. Cleveland is the opponent that has fallen the most often to Baltimore, trailing by a whopping 35-13 in the lifetime head-to-head series. Baltimore was attempting to complete a season series sweep over the Browns for the 14th time and the second time in three years. Cleveland has recorded only two sweeps (2001, 2007), and the teams have split nine times…
–With the loss, Baltimore temporarily slipped a half-game behind the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC North Division. Cincinnati is now the No. 3 seed in the AFC, with the Ravens holding down the fifth seed…
–Tucker’s second-quarter, 53-yard field goal not only tied the game at 3-all but his 355th career made field goal set a new franchise record. Tucker would attempt to make up for his earlier miss, but a 50-yard try early in the fourth quarter was blocked. It was the first time Tucker had two misses in a game in nearly four years, but Browns kicker Cade York yanked a 38-yarder wide left shortly thereafter. He added a second miss when a 46-yard try went wide right…
–The Ravens wore white jerseys and black pants on the road for this game, a combination in which the team is now 35-53 all-time…
–Baltimore’s defense has not allowed a 100-yard rusher in 23 straight games; the Browns’ Nick Chubb was officially credited with 99 yards. The Ravens once had a 50-game defensive streak preventing such rushing performances between 1999-2001, a run broken by Cincinnati running back Corey Dillon…
–The Ravens have now scored points in 333 straight games, the league’s longest current streak and just 87 short of the NFL record set by San Francisco (1977-2004). The Ravens haven’t been shut out since Week 2 in 2002, a home-opening, 25-0 defeat at the hands of that year’s eventual Super Bowl champions, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers…
–Next week, most of the NFL’s action will also occur on Saturday (Christmas Eve), including the Ravens’ 1 p.m. home game against the Atlanta Falcons, a team struggling with a subpar record but contending in the mediocre NFC South Division. The Ravens have won four of six-lifetime regular-season meetings against the Falcons and are 2-0 against them in Baltimore. The teams have met 11 times in preseason action, but none since 2015; the Ravens lead the preseason series, 7-4…
–The game will air on Fox since an NFC team is visiting. It is the Ravens’ final regular-season appearance on Fox this year, but it is Fox’s turn to air the Super Bowl this coming February 12….
